Hi. My name is Clark and this is my blog. My intent is to entertain and I'd like this to be more than "Clark And What Pisses Him Off" (although there will definitely be some of that) so I'll be posting some short humorous fiction as well. I hope you like it.
WARNING: Sometimes I will cuss. And I will also embellish facts (ie: lie) in the interest of making things funnier than they really are. Just so you know.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Bad date(s)

I've had lots and lots of dates over the last few years. Some have been pretty good. Most have been awful, like my most recent one.
I had two tickets to see Morris Day and The Time last Saturday. I mentioned this to somebody I thought didn't hate me. Her response was to tell me about a friend of hers who is "really nice and lots of fun. She would love that. You guys would have so much!" Me, in possession of an extra ticket and apparently incapable of ever learning the most basic of life lessons said sure. I don't know why I don't just adapt a relatively reasonable and minimal-risk approach to dating like picking up what may or may not be tranny hookers on Nebraska Avenue but I guess I'm just not that bright.
She put us in contact and we exchanged text messages and pictures. It turns out that this was where things went off the rails, a full 48 hours before the actual date. I showed up outside the Mahaffey Theatre and recognized her immediately, sitting on a bench outside of the box office. She looked confused. "You don't look like your picture", she said. "I don't?", I replied, genuinely surprised. "That's weird. It's the most recent picture I have on my phone. In fact, it's the only picture I have on my phone."

The picture I sent, me with Lynne Koplitz, taken on May 22.

"Well, it's okay", she said. She got up and we headed toward the box office when she stopped, turned to me and said, "why didn't you just send a picture of yourself? It's no big deal." Well, except now it is, I'm thinking. I don't need my integrity challenged by somebody I've just met. I said, "Show me the picture you think I sent you." She thumbed through her phone and eventually came up with something that looked kind of like this:

It wasn't a young, care-free Casey Kasem but a guy who kind of looked like him

"I didn't send you that. I have no idea who that guy is and I've never seen that picture before in my life" She just shrugged and said "huh". I didn't really want to drop it but I thought that things might get better, so I did.
Things didn't get better.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that while I do not have direct knowledge of Hitler ever having sex with my grandmother, that this date was worse than that. I feel comfortable in making this statement because if Adolph Hitler had shown up at some point during the date via some sort of time travel device and said to me, "I'm about to have sex mit your grandmother. Vould you like to come along and watch?", I'd have probably said yes. Sorry, grandma, but I was not having a nice time.

She had at least eight drinks.

She got up to use the bathroom at least eight times.

We were in seats 35 and 36. That means she climbed over 35 people (including me) approximately 32 times.

She took great satisfaction in smuggling two bags of Fritos past the ushers who were enforcing a "no food in the auditorium" rule.

She kept telling me I was funny, which I normally love, but I wasn't trying to be funny. In fact, I was going out of my way to not be funny. Or appealing or even friendly eventually. Such as when I started live Tweeting about what a shitty date it was. "What are you typing?" "Some disparaging shit about you." "Ha ha ha ha! You're so funny!" "Yeah, okay." "So do you want to go somewhere when the show is over?" "Oh, I don't know. I'm kind of hoping to be murdered in the parking lot." "Ha ha ha ha!"

Fritos. Seriously.

At one point, she said, "I'm into black guys." I'm not sure how a white guy is supposed to react to his date telling him that during a date, but for my part, it was an enormous relief. Shortly after, a young (college aged, like 22 or 23) black kid, came up the aisle on his way to the lobby and she said, "Here, watch this." She stopped him and said, "are you Pam's son?" He just said no and kept walking. "See? How come I can't get black guys to like me?" I had so many questions and against my own better judgment, asked all of them. "What was that? Were you trying to pick him up? Was that a pick-up line?" "He looked like my friend Pam's son. Pam is my best friend and she's black." "Okay...so do you want to hook up with your best friend's...excuse me, your black best friend's son?" "No, no, I didn't really think he was her son. That was just a conversation starter. An ice breaker" "No, it wasn't. It was question, a question which he answered with one word and went about his business. There was no ice broken. I suppose he could have said, 'who the hell is Pam?' which would be a longer response but that's still not really a conversation." "So what should I do to get black guys to notice me?" "Well, I didn't expect to be put in the position of having to speak on behalf of young black men, but..." "Ha ha ha ha ha!! You are SO funny!"

During the show, she asked me, "what did he say?". Who does that during a concert?? It's annoying when elderly people do that during movies. This was a Morris Day and The Time concert! "What did he say?" "He said, 'I'm about to walk a hole in my Stacey Adams'" "What's that?" "It's a brand of shoes". "Ha ha ha ha! He's so funny!"

Morris Day has been wearing, and singing about, these shoes since 19effing81.

I don't know if she ever figured out where that other photo came from and why she didn't get mine. I have given strict orders to the person who paired us up to not tell me if she ever does. And also to never try to fix me up with any of her nice and fun friends ever again.

CBS Tampa's Most Valuable Blogger Award 2011 Winner

Who's this guy?

Originally from Benton Harbor, Michigan, I have lived in the Tampa Bay area for over 20 years now. I am a published writer with numerous internet columns, magazine articles and a documentary film credit. I've also done professional announcing and acting. I like to make fun of stupid people in positions of authority when they do stupid things. While that implies that I think I'm somehow superior to them, nothing could be further from the truth.